HAs anyone converted Al-Qadim from 2e to at lest 3e? Maybe PF?
There were some 3rd edition conversion materials in Dragon Magazines. Hopefully someone remembers which issues were those.
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The Piazza has an Al-Qadim forum and you can find some threads about conversions over there:
- [3e] Al-Qadim 3.5 (by Kynn Bartlett)
- Al-Qadim Pathfinder Conversion (The Sha'ir)
- Al-Qadim Pathfinder Conversion (Equipment)
- Al-Qadim Pathfinder Conversion (Skills and Feats)
- Al-Qadim Pathfinder Conversion (Character Races)
- Al-Qadim Pathfinder Conversion (Descriptive Elements)
- Al-Qadim Pathfinder Conversion (Character Backgrounds)
(There is even a 4e conversion thread there, but that is probably of limited use to you.)
Nate Christen is the guy that dropped all the Pathfinder threads. At the time he dropped them, they had not been playtested.
There is also a general Al-Quadim links thread: (Other Al-Qadim Websites) where people are trying to collate a list of all the Al-Qadim fansites and communities that are out there.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I ran a 3.5 AQ campaign for a year or so. We played up to around 9th level or so and then ended the campaign to try 4th Edition. Alas... :)
I did a bunch of conversion stuff for that campaign, which I have on my laptop, but it's not posted anywhere online. I actually never quite finished my magic system conversion (I reordered all the spells into new schools more themed for AQ). One quirk I put into the campaign that I thought was fun was a HEAVY emphasis on regionalism, with lots of 'background' feats based on race and where in the AQ world you were from, and the same was true with spells. There were things you couldn't just take unless you were from there or traveled there and spent some time. It did add an incentive to travel!
I ran a 3.5 AQ campaign for a year or so. We played up to around 9th level or so and then ended the campaign to try 4th Edition. Alas... :)
I did a bunch of conversion stuff for that campaign, which I have on my laptop, but it's not posted anywhere online. I actually never quite finished my magic system conversion (I reordered all the spells into new schools more themed for AQ). One quirk I put into the campaign that I thought was fun was a HEAVY emphasis on regionalism, with lots of 'background' feats based on race and where in the AQ world you were from, and the same was true with spells. There were things you couldn't just take unless you were from there or traveled there and spent some time. It did add an incentive to travel!
Jason you should convert it to Casmaron and get Paizo to put it out.;)
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The one thing to keep in mind in terms of al-Qadim > Casmaron and Qadira is that the Shi'ar as imagined by TSR is fairly distinctively their own animal, and not based on the historical Sahirs, who were astrological magicians and hexers, though they sometimes bind Jinn as well. It was the Kahin who were shamans, and the Shaikhs who compel Jinn via faith, rather than by contracts.
Thus the Sahir (Shi'ar) is a sort of learned witch with a special connection to fate, the Kahins are possessed by Jinn or associate freely with them (Summoners or Druids?) and the Shaikhs are a kind of Cleric. The Majus is the wizard, more or less, though they are strongly associated with Zoroasterianism.
In other words, the concept of the Shi'ar verges on product identity since it diverges significantly from its meaning in the RW.
Jason you should convert it to Casmaron and get Paizo to put it out.;)I ran a 3.5 AQ campaign for a year or so. We played up to around 9th level or so and then ended the campaign to try 4th Edition. Alas... :)
I did a bunch of conversion stuff for that campaign, which I have on my laptop, but it's not posted anywhere online. I actually never quite finished my magic system conversion (I reordered all the spells into new schools more themed for AQ). One quirk I put into the campaign that I thought was fun was a HEAVY emphasis on regionalism, with lots of 'background' feats based on race and where in the AQ world you were from, and the same was true with spells. There were things you couldn't just take unless you were from there or traveled there and spent some time. It did add an incentive to travel!
If you don't want to do that, maybe you could compile it into a netbook and get Candlekeep to host it.
Candlekeep took two Maztica netbooks from the Maztica Alive team. I'm sure they would also love to host stuff from Al-Qadim fans.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I was thinking this afternoon about ways to Pathfinderize some of my old ideas. I remade all of the classes as 20-level base classes. Some of them might work better as archetypes. It's a fun project to think about. We'll see when I have time to work on it. :)
For a 3.0 conversion, start with this page, which links to two conversions of Al-Qadim to 3.0.
Personally, I was never terribly crazy about the one labelled "New Arabian Adventure, v7.1", but I love the conversion labelled "Al-Qadim Conversion Manual, v1.00". It has great conversions for the Assassin, Sha'ir, Hakima, and Merchant. I cannot emphasize enough how much I love that conversion...
...but I'll try. It was that conversion manual that convinced me that 3.X was the TRUE D&D, able to do anything worth doing in D&D. Since finding that conversion manual, I've never considered going back to 2E, despite my heavy use of 2E material.
Oh, there's something else that I should, perhaps, mention.
There were some 3rd edition conversion materials in Dragon Magazines. Hopefully someone remembers which issues were those.
The Shair conversion was in #315 and is also available in the Dragon Compendium.
Also, I understand that Dragon magazine issue 321 has 3.5 versions of the Barber, Corsair, Holy Slayer, and Mamluk prestige classes.
But I never bothered getting 321 nor 315, once I saw the "Al-Qadim Conversion Manual, v1.00".
Did I mention that I REALLY loved that conversion?
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Also, I understand that Dragon magazine issue 321 has 3.5 versions of the Barber, Corsair, Holy Slayer, and Mamluk prestige classes.
But I never bothered getting 321 nor 315, once I saw the "Al-Qadim Conversion Manual, v1.00".
Did I mention that I REALLY loved that conversion?
The Sha'ir in the conversion document (v1.00) is indeed way better than the one in the Dragon Compendium (IMO).
The Dragon Compendium one, as I understand it, retains all the disadvantages of a 2E Sha'ir (you'll get to cast one spell per encounter, and maybe not even that, if you didn't have five or more rounds to have your Gen fetch one!), *and* eliminated the Sha'ir bonus of being able to call for any spell, and to call for spells all day long, limiting the Sha'ir to a sorcerer-sized list of spells known *and* to a limited number of slots per day, making it pretty much just an *incredibly* weak version of the Sorcerer.
I could, and I'm not even exagerrating, make a more useful wizard *that didn't own a spellbook, and had to use only spells he knew through Spell Mastery.*
I loved the flavor of the Kahin, Mystic, Mameluke and Holy Slayer kits (as well as the Sha'ir). I even made up some Mameluke orders, back in the day. What a flavorful setting!
The Complete Sha'ir book had some amazingly innovative concepts for new mage types, that, IMO, almost universally sucked, mechanically...
But I never bothered getting 321 nor 315, once I saw the "Al-Qadim Conversion Manual, v1.00".
Did I mention that I REALLY loved that conversion?
I wasn't aware of this conversion, but you're right - it is great, so thanks!
What I'd really like to see is some specs for Middle Eastern swords - yataghans, tulwars and the like. You could always use the stats for a short sword inflicting slashing damage and a scimitar for a yataghan and a tulwar respectively, but it's not the same, somehow... We've got pages of stuff on Oriental swords, after all
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A tulwar is an Indian sword - but it's basically a heavy saber. The Arabic term is Saif, and the Persian is Shamshir - the latter is the origin of the word scimitar.
I'd use longsword stats, myself. I'd have to check my books on South Asian weaponry to be sure (weight and length), however.
Unfortunately or fortunately, PF doesn't provide much rules variation to have distinctive swords.
Now if we had weapon speed again... :)
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It's true about the Complete Sha'ir book, but man were they cool concepts. I'm pretty sure I extrapolated some of them into full 20-level classes in my 3.5 AQ conversion.
We jumped on the concept flirted around with in the Clockwork Mage and 'Weaver' Mage, and just made a generic 'Craftmage,' that 'prepared' spells in the morning by engaging in a craft skill. One Craftmage might be an 'alchemist' who brewed his spells as 'potions,' while another created 'scrolls' and a third cut crystals and gems and a fourth tinkered together little clockwork machines and a forth folded origami spells that he later unfolded (or threw down) to activate. We made a cursory attempt at balancing those with the more expensive or complicated preparation schemes by making them take less time, or, in the case of paperfolding, which was super-cheap compared to the rest, by requiring that it be performed on the fly (taking a number of rounds, sort of like a Sha'ir calling for a spell) and not able to be prepared en masse at the beginning of the day.
There were even a few fakeouts, as one player made up a craftsmage whose 'thing' was haiku written in Kozakuran calligraphy, which, to the untrained eye, looked a lot like he was reading scrolls (when he was actually storing his 'prepared spells' for the day in his creative works).
Yeah. We used a modified Al-Qadim 'kit' in an Oriental Adventures game. After Spelljammer rocked our world, we cross-pollinated *everything.* :)
Well, let's see some of these conversions which people have been talking about! Please. :)
And yeah, that cross-pollination was one of the great things about Spelljammer. (Although there were some not-so-great things too.)
The Dragon Compendium one, as I understand it, retains all the disadvantages of a 2E Sha'ir (you'll get to cast one spell per encounter, and maybe not even that, if you didn't have five or more rounds to have your Gen fetch one!), *and* eliminated the Sha'ir bonus of being able to call for any spell, and to call for spells all day long, limiting the Sha'ir to a sorcerer-sized list of spells known *and* to a limited number of slots per day, making it pretty much just an *incredibly* weak version of the Sorcerer.I could, and I'm not even exagerrating, make a more useful wizard *that didn't own a spellbook, and had to use only spells he knew through Spell Mastery.*
Your understanding is a bit off, actually. It's not a perfect reinvention of the class, but it is a potentially fun one. Basically, there's two big areas you're misunderstanding.
A) Compendium Sha'ir are not limited to holding one spell at a time. They can keep sending their gens out to retrieve more spells and fill up as many spell slots as they want; the only limit on that is time. (It takes a few rounds/minutes per spell, and the spells are only retained for an hour per sha'ir level. That actually becomes a self correcting problem by a few levels in, though.) Basically, he can load up on spells in the same time a wizard takes to prepare via his spellbook in the morning.
B) While they no longer can access every single spell from every single spell list, (and can't retrieve spells of a higher levle then they'd normally be able to cast at all), they are not limited to their list of Spells Known in any way. In this case, 'Spells Known' just means a list of spells that, well, they know exist and are therefore marginally easier (and much quicker) to retrieve. But they can retrieve any spell from the wizard/sorcerer list, even if it's not 'Known' as long as they've seen it cast and identified it with a Spellcraft check. Additionally, they get a limited set of cleric spells; this is nowhere near universal, basically they get to retrieve anything from any of the elemental-oriented domain lists, plus a few others.
So how this plays out: yes, they have a limited number of spell slots, but that number is, as I recall, in the middle ground between Wizard and Sorcerer. They have to pre-fill those slots, they don't get spontaneous casting. But there is nothing preventing a Sha'ir from filling up, say, 75% of his daily slots with (presumably) universally useful spells that he has on his Spells Known list, and keeping the rest free to either refill during downtime between combat, or else filling as needed with situational spells. ("Door's locked? Give me a few minutes to have my gen grab knock. Oh, hey, the bad guy we just captured said there's a red dragon the next level down. Time to go retrieve some fire resistance spells...") Basically similar to a wizard not preparing a full allotment of spells in the morning and keeping a few slots open to prepare along the way, if needed, but much, much more versatile.
Now, there are a few flaws in it; they only get 2 skills per level, and since they probably don't have a super intelligence score, they're not exactly skill rich. So then you toss in the fact that they basically have a dual skill tax included (Keeping Diplomacy maxed is pretty mandatory to ensure you're usually able to retrieve a spell, and Spellcraft is obviously important for versatility as well.) and good luck having a Sha'ir that knows how to climb or swim.
It's also a PITA to have to roll (twice; once for Diplomacy and another for retrieval time) for every single spell during spell prep time; that's fine to begin with but will get really old really quick at higher levels. (Although since there's nothing preventing taking 10 on your diplomacy check, it pretty much quickly becomes an auto-success for spells known, at least, and even not known arcane spells pretty quickly fall into line. I would imagine most campaigns with one quickly house rule not needing to roll for most easy spells and handwaving the time required, at least during morning prep time.) This is, of course, a holdover from 2nd edition Sha'irs, but since they only ever had one spell at a time it didn't slow down gameplay at all.
Nevetheless, it's a pretty fun & versatile take on the old class; I'm not as familiar with the conversion document one, so can't speak of relative strengths and weaknesses, but it's not even remotely unplayable.
I'd love to see a workable version of the Spellslayer.